


A Kind of Parenthood

by Lumelle



Series: Kinder Spirits [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Implied Relationships, Major Character Injury, Trans Character, Trans Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 15:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15342966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumelle/pseuds/Lumelle
Summary: Tony has always taken twisted pride in the fact he has no illegitimate children, except then suddenly he does. Peter is a good kid, though, so maybe Tony can actually try not to be a complete failure of a father.





	A Kind of Parenthood

A part of Tony had always taken a kind of twisted pride in the fact that he did not have illegitimate children out in the world.

He knew most people would not have considered this a particular point of pride, but given his sexual history, he was going to take what little comfort he could get. Not that he had been especially conscientious about checking back in with every fling during his less than responsible years, but he also hadn’t ever been shy about making sure his partners knew who they were dealing with. If someone had indeed been left with an unexpected surprise, they would have known who to contact.

Tony never accounted for the possibility of a woman who might face the daunting scenario of an unplanned child and not jump at the chance at grabbing a piece of the Stark pie.

He didn’t go out looking for a bastard child of his, of course, didn’t think he had any reason to do so. No, what he did was look into the new teenage superhero flinging around Queens, because that was a bit too close to his backyard for him to look the other way. It was way too easy for him to crack the boy’s identity, honestly they’d have to have a long talk about how there was supposed to be a secret part in secret identity because not everyone could be Tony and declare themselves to the world, and soon enough Tony was digging up all sorts of interesting facts about this itsy bitsy spider. Funnily enough, the name on the boy’s school records didn’t match his birth certificate. Clearly this warranted deeper investigation.

Thanks to the miracles of internet and Friday, Tony soon found himself digging through childhood photos of the suspected spider person. The kid in the photos sure looked like a girl, but clearly that wasn’t the end of this story. A girl wouldn’t be enrolled as Peter.

Then Tony came across a picture of Peter’s mother, and paused.

It was just a fleeting thought at first, a moment of familiarity that he nearly brushed aside. Then, however, he connected the picture to the name he had seen elsewhere in his searches, and did some quick mental math.

Huh. That was… rather close for a coincidence.

Germany was a total mess, of course. Honestly the best thing Tony could say that at least nobody died, and that wasn’t much in their favor. He didn’t even have the time or energy to think of Peter beyond sending him home, too caught up in the disaster that was Winter Soldier and everything that followed. As such, it wasn’t until several days later that he even noticed Friday’s mention that Peter had, in fact, been injured. Not badly, mind, but still injured, because Tony had been stupid and brought him into battle for his own selfish reasons.

It took him significantly less time to notice Friday had run an analysis of the blood sample obtained from that injury.

Tony had a great track record in distancing himself from anything even vaguely emotionally difficult. Great as in he tended to do so, not as in it worked out for him. Therefore he soon found himself caught in a childish game of cat and mouse, keeping the kid at a distance yet tugging him along like a puppy on a leash. And Peter behaved just like a puppy, lapping up any hint of attention he could get, too starved for approval to truly back away.

It took Peter almost dying to make Tony figure out what he truly wanted. Maybe he wasn’t ready for Peter to know him as his father, but at least he could live up to his promises of support for the kid. Perhaps he was still shaky on the emotional side of things, but he could at least make sure Peter’s suit was as safe as he could make it, keep an ear out for any distress calls, answer his phone once in a while. He drew May Parker aside one day and told her Stark Industries offered Peter an excellent health insurance through his internship, one that would cover any transition-related expenses among other things. It was too little too late after so many years, but he had to start somewhere.

He had a long way to go before he had any right to claim the kid as his own.

*

Tony did not like Sam Alexander.

To be fair, their first meeting happened under less than ideal circumstances. Tony was already wound up from seeing Peter nearly get himself skewered during a fight, and the way the two get bickering even as Tony was having Friday run diagnostics of Peter’s vitals was getting on his nerves. He had vaguely been aware of another teen hero occasionally teaming up with Peter, one with even more unlikely abilities than pretending to be an overgrown arachnid, but he kind of had his hands full mentoring this one kid.

Now, apparently, Peter had insisted on dragging his so-called friend along to the Tower, and Tony in turn was getting very close to throwing the kid out the nearest window. It would be fine, the boy could fly.

Peter rolled his eyes like the teenager he was but stretched his arms as instructed, only to hiss as a particular position seemed to put too much strain on his shoulder. Tony frowned, about to say something at least vaguely responsible, when Alexander huffed.

“Honestly, Webhead.” Alexander crossed his arms over his chest. “Stop being such a girl.”

Peter only froze for a fleeting second, but Tony caught it anyway. He turned his head slowly towards Alexander, counting to ten in his head. Pepper wouldn’t approve if he actually started tossing kids around, and besides he didn’t want to out Peter. He was assuming Peter wasn’t out to this idiot, and if he was, he’d better stop hanging around such an asshole.

“Look, kid, I don’t know you, and frankly you’re only here so spiderling here has someone to distract him while I make sure he’s in one piece. However, let me make one thing crystal clear.” Tony narrowed his eyes. “If I hear any gendered insults out of you ever again, jokes or not, you get to explain to Pepper why exactly being a girl would be a bad thing. And believe me, you don’t want to do that. Pepper had the Black Widow as her PA, she won’t have any patience for teenage boy posturing. Understood?”

The kid looked like he wanted to protest, but then scowled and nodded. “What, not going to tell me to hug and apologize?”

“Nah, I don’t believe in forced physical contact. Especially not when it involves you putting your hands all over spider boy.” Tony sniffed. “He can do much better, I’m sure.”

“Why, because I’m a guy?” There was a definite tone of challenge to Alexander’s voice now.

“Yeah, because my bisexual ass is totally going to care about that.” Tony snorted. This was actually not public knowledge, he’d put a lot of effort into building up his straight playboy reputation, but at this point he didn’t care. Pepper knew and it didn’t matter to her, and anyone else’s opinion was nowhere near as important as making it clear to the kids where he stood on this. “No, because you’re rude and Spidey’s a good kid. You’ve got some work to do if you want to be worthy of him.”

“Oh, screw you. I’d be the perfect boyfriend for Webhead.”

“That’s for him to decide. And I don’t think insulting him is a good start.” Tony turned back to his screen. “Okay, kid, your vitals are as close to normal as you ever get. Let me know if anything goes out of the ordinary, but hopefully you should get all healed up pretty soon.”

“Right. I’ll do that.” Peter nodded. “Thanks. You know, for helping.”

“Anything to keep your aunt from doing what so many villains have failed and kill me.” Tony shrugged. “And if Helmet here keeps being an ass, give me a call.”

“Ah. He’s not that bad.” Which would have been more convincing if Tony hadn’t noticed his reaction to the comment.

Clearly Peter did think the guy wasn’t entirely beyond salvation, though, as a week or so later he did call Tony. “I told Sam,” he said, sounding something between exhilarated and panicked. “About, you know. Being trans.”

“Right.” Tony hummed to himself, looking over his latest design. “And how’d that go? Do I need to yell at him? I’m not sure how good I’d be at protective lectures, but I can give it a shot.”

“What? No! No, he… he took it pretty well, actually. And he actually realized why you called him out the other day and apologized.” The panic was fading from Peter’s voice, now. Apparently it had mostly been the disbelief of actually accomplishing this.

“Good. Maybe he’s not a total idiot after all.” The jury was still out on it as far as Tony was concerned, but he figured Peter could monitor his own social circles. It wasn’t like Tony was an expert in social relationships, after all.

“He really isn’t. I mean, he gets on my nerves a lot, and we fight a lot, but I know that when it counts I can trust him no matter what.”

Tony paused to process that, then groaned. “Well, fuck. You’re barely out of diapers and you’ve already gone and found yourself a Cap. At least yours is less of a boyscout so you actually have some hope of turning the mutual tension into makeout sessions.”

And, really, if Peter wanted to convince Tony that this wasn’t the case, he could have tried to sound a little less flustered in his protests.

*

In the end, Tony did not get to tell Peter himself.

He’d been working on finding the best way to break the news without it coming across as a joke. God knew he wouldn’t have blamed Peter for thinking Tony had to be joking because the alternative was believing that he was related to the Starks. Who’d have wanted that?

Tony had already told Pepper, of course, partly because he was done keeping secrets from Pepper and partly because someone should know in case he lost his chance. He wasn’t exactly known for his great track record at self-preservation, after all, a fact even Pepper had to acknowledge. She wasn’t entirely happy about Tony pushing the matter away, but at least he was working on it.

As Tony felt the suit caving in on him in the way of an explosion shockwave, he spared a moment to congratulate himself for his incredible foresight. Pepper could at least make sure Peter got his rightful inheritance to hopefully make up for Tony’s absolute failure. Well, assuming Peter made it home, either. Considering Tony heard the kid shouting for him, that didn’t look too likely.

Well, damn. And here he had been thinking he could not possibly fuck up the whole parenting thing any worse than his own father had.

Tony knew this was it for him, after all the close calls he’d had over the years. Things had been going downhill even before he felt his own suit crushing him; there was no way anyone could get him to medical attention in time even in the unlikely case there was anything left to save. At least he’d only had a fraction of a second to mourn this before everything went black, never to wake again.

Except, as luck would have it, he woke up.

It was the sounds that alerted him first of all, which had to mean that whatever they were giving him for pain was the good stuff. He could hear machines that were definitely not his suit, something that was further supported by the feeling of lying in a bed rather than a pile of wrecked metal. Fancy that.

It took some considerable effort to open his eyes, but he’d fought debilitating pain and near-fatal injuries before. Blinking at the ceiling of a dimly lit hospital room above him, Tony drew a deep breath before turning his head. He hadn’t dared to expect much, and then found his breath catching as he saw Pepper dozing off in a chair next to his bed.

“…Pep?”

His voice sounded weak even to his own ears, yet somehow it apparently reached Pepper. She stirred, eyes opening slowly. “Huh? I… Tony?”

“Pep.” His voice was still weak, but he had to try at least. Not that he had much to say, still wondering what exactly had happened.

“Tony!” Pepper scrambled up to her feet, rushing to his bed. “You — you’re awake!”

“Yeah.” Tony managed a weak smirk. “Not sure… how.”

“Well, I don’t think I can answer that.” Pepper looked like she’d been crying. That was clearly not right, but Tony couldn’t even summon up the strength to reach up to wipe away her tears. “Twenty hours in surgery and they still couldn’t even say whether you were going to live.”

“…Sorry.” What else was he supposed to say? Every time he tried to tell Pepper he wouldn’t cause her any more pain, he ended up being a liar. At this point, all he could do was apologize.

“You should be.” Pepper was smiling, though, so clearly she wasn’t too mad at him. “For the record, you’re absolutely not going out in that suit before you’ve properly recovered. Which is going to be a while, just so you know.”

“Right.” Tony tried to wet his lips to manage more than a couple of words at a time. “Maybe… I’ll retire.” It was about time, anyway.

“Like you could ever manage to actually do that.” Pepper’s smile was somewhat sad now, even… resigned. That was not good.

“I’ll try.” He was going to try his best, he really was. She deserved better than this.

“…Tony.” Pepper reached out to touch his arm. “I know who you are. I knew you before Iron Man, and while there’s more risk involved now, I think I prefer this Tony.” She squeezed his arm ever so lightly as though afraid he would break. Which, granted, was probably a very reasonable fear. “I’m sticking with you, no matter what.”

“Good.” What could he say? He was a selfish man. “…Others?”

“All accounted for.” Which sounded unbelievable, but he knew Pepper wouldn’t have lied to him about this. “Apparently, Spider-Man can just throw around giant evil robots if given sufficient motivation.”

“What?” Tony frowned. “That thing… was 10 tons, minimum.” He was pretty sure he remembered Friday’s analysis telling him that.

“Yes, well, he was rather surprised, himself. And apparently quite sore afterwards.” Pepper paused. “…I told him. About, well, you and him.”

“Good.” That was part of the reason why he’d made sure she knew, after all. “He… should know.”

“Except since you failed to die, you’re going to have to actually face the consequences.” Pepper was smiling, though, so clearly she wasn’t wishing too much devastation on him. Probably. Maybe she was smiling with glee at the idea.

“I will.” He owed the kid at least that much, after all, having been such a failure at this whole being a father thing. Sure, he hadn’t even known about Peter for most of that time, but that was no excuse. Not when he had so often congratulated himself on not leaving any illegitimate spawn behind on his various sexual escapades.

“For now, you should get some more rest.” Pepper’s hand left his arm, and Tony almost wanted to protest, but he knew she was right. “And don’t you dare die on me after I spent all this time waiting for you to wake up.”

“No, Ma’am.” Somehow Tony managed a grin. “Not dying… before I marry you.”

Pepper’s face went through some complicated series of expressions before finally settling on a soft smile. “Careful. If I were a more devious woman, I would refuse to ever marry you just to keep you alive.” She bent down to kiss him briefly, and okay, that was definitely worth surviving an explosion for. “But since I actually like the idea, I’ll just remind you that you’ll have to survive if you want to bond with your son over doing scientific measurements of his maximum strength.” And, really. It was utterly unfair of Pepper to know his weaknesses so very well.

For someone who had almost been pulverized by a giant evil murderbot with explosive fists, Tony decided, he really was a very lucky man.


End file.
